Hello! This blog post is the summary and story of one of my Science project, Exciting Electricity! In this project we learned about circuits, energy, electricity in general. The Driving Question for this project was: N/a. I couldn’t find a driving question. Either I was blind or she didn’t write one. 

The first part of this project was about sustainability. We watched a powerpoint about this topic and took notes (at least I did). Basically different types of energy have different advantages and disadvantages. We also watched a video about nuclear power has a bad wrap for being the most dangerous type of energy. But this is actually not true. It kills less people based on hose much energy is generated than fossil fuels. It does still kill people but it is much less dangerous then people make it out to be. We also choice a form of energy to research the next couple of classes. 

I chose hydroelectric energy because it is very safe and sustainable. We were to make a poster explaining that source of energy. The requirements for the poster were to use Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning, pictures contributing to the text, and of course the text! For the text we need pros (advantages to using this source of energy), cons (disadvantages of this energy), and solutions (solutions to the cons of the type of energy). Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning is just that, claiming something, backing it up with evidence and explaining why that evidence helps ur case. Now that I understood the requirements for the keystone, I started working!

I started by researching using the Canadian Encyclopaedia and Brittanica, both reliable and trustworthy sites. I wrote down down important information I found about the pros and cons. I won’t tell you the stuff here, you can just read the poster included in this blog. The same goes for the solutions I thought of. After I had all the information I wanted to include, I started working on the visual design aspect of it. I wanted some part of it to have a water theme (you know, HYDROelectric). I got a nice basic water surface to use as a background. It was not that distracting and I liked it so I kept it. Next I placed the title and subtitle, so I could get a feel for where I wanted to place things. I found a basic squarish font for the titles. I liked this sub theme of it being simple for I just got a rectangle and two rods on the top and bottom. This is what I then used for all the text on the poster.  

I condensed my research and added some grammar to get the text, then I placed it on the poster. Finally I just need to add some images. I got some simple shapes so I could create my own diagrams. I liked the colour scheme of the greys and blues so I made the diagrams monochrome. I couldn’t get any images for the water cycle so I sketched my own. Finally I added citations and my name. I handed it in and got an A+.

The next part of the project was just learning and taking notes, then doing a worksheet. I can’t really tell a story with this and I doubt your interested, if anyone at all is reading this, so I’m just going to do a quick overview. We learned about current, conductors, insulators, resistance, circuit diagrams, Ohm’s Law, and series VS parallel circuits. If your really curious about this stuff you either already know about it or you have enough passion to learn about this stuff your self. If you really want to know heres my notes. Now we need to start planning our final keystone.

The final keystone is making your own operation game. That game with the tweezers and unconscious man. We made a draft of the circuit the day before we started. The concept is actually surprising simple. There is a box lid with holes in it for you to tweezer stuff out. We put tin foil on the inside of the lid and a design on the front. We got a light and attached it to the foil. Then we got a battery and attached it to the foil as well as the tweezers using wires. When the tweezers touch the foil, the circuit closes and the light turns. I did everything exactly to the instructions and… the light didn’t turn on. I rechecked everything and redid some tin foil but no cigar. I asked the teacher but she didn’t know anything, she just found the instructions online. I asked kids that got theirs working and same thing answer. I’m going to take it home to my dad to see if he can help (he’s an electrical engineer). Anyway I liked my design of the box. Its a little weird and creepy, but I was just doodling. 🙂

See ya around and goodbye, Judah G!